Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Weird Halloween Trivia

Halloween stirs up all kinds of phobias, and many may be feeling creeped out by the festivities this year. Some suffer from the following fears:* Fear of cats = ailurophobia* Fear of ghosts = phasmophobia* Fear of Halloween = samhainophobia* Fear of the dark = nyctophobia* Fear of witches = wiccaphobia* Fear of the number 13 = Paraskavedekatriaphobia* Fear of cemeteries = coimetrophobia* Fear of spiders = arachnophobia

It was believed that black cats were witches’ familiars and protected them.

Vampire bats do exist, but not in Transylvania. They are typically found in Central and South America where they feed on horses, cattle or birds.

If you stare into a mirror at midnight on Halloween, legend says you will see the face of your future spouse.

It is also believed that if you see a spider on Halloween, it is the spirit of a loved one watching over you.

If you have a unibrow or unusually long middle fingers, then you just might be a werewolf, otherwise known as a lycanthrope.

In France, more than 30,000 werewolf cases were tried between 1520 and 1630.

It's illegal to sell a haunted house in New York without informing the buyer.

Trick-or-treating is an Irish tradition, based on a custom where wealthy landowners would give food to the poor on Halloween night, believing ghosts would look favorably on them for doing so and spare them from mischief.

There is a poisonous mushroom called a jack-o'-lantern. These mushrooms are a bright orange-yellow in color and on rainy nights they appears to glow in the dark.

The first Frankenstein film was produced by Thomas Edison in 1910.

A pumpkin is a berry in the cucurbitaceae family, which also includes melons, cucumbers, squash and gourds. All these plants are native to the Americas.